Sean Hannity Takes "Abrupt Vacation" Amid Advertiser Boycott

Is Fox News about to lose its last remaining "old school" anchor holdout?

According to Philly.com, Hannity is taking "a couple days off amid a growing advertiser boycott" over Hannity's pursuit of the Seth Rich story - an parallel to Bill O'Reilly's final days - and so far, seven advertisers are said to have pulled out of Hannity’s show.

Cars.com was the first advertiser to announce it was pulling ads, telling Buzzfeed News on Wednesday afternoon that “we’ve been watching closely and have recently made the decision to pull our advertising from Hannity.” It was followed by exercise bike company Peloton (which just closed a $325M Series E round financing), Leesa Sleep; mattress retailer Casper, insurance company USAA; home security equipment maker Ring and Crowne Plaza Hotels, all of which announced they would be redirecting their ad buys from Hannity’s shows.

Meanwhile, the Five host Kimberly Guilfoyle, who has confirmed speaking to the White House about potentially replacing press secretary Sean Spicer, will be filling in on Hannity on Thursday and Friday.

Kimberly Guilfoyle

Preempting speculation about a possible permanent departure, Hannity announced on Twitter the vacation was his annual Memorial Day getaway, and said "Uh oh My ANNUAL Memorial Day long weekend starts NOW. Destroy Trump/Conservative media breathless coverage starts! Did Hannity do last show?"

According to Philly.com, it is unclear if Hannity will still host his syndicated radio show on Thursday and Friday, which airs at 6 p.m. in Philadelphia on 1210 WPHT.

In any case, as noted above, so far the timeline of events surrounding Hannity is strikingly similar to how events unfolded for former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, who following a New York Times report that revealed O’Reilly paid five former Fox News personalities $13 million to settle claims of sexual and verbal harassment, took an abrupt vacation amid a growing exodus of advertisers from his show. Despite assurances from the network that the vacation was pre planed, Fox News fired O’Reilly eight days later.

In interviews with Philly.com, Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky slammed the network, calling it “really egregious” to allow Hannity, Gingrich and others to discuss the death of Seth Rich. “We know the facts. Wikileaks was in collaboration with the Russians,” Roginsky said.“How do we know this? Because the entire intelligence community said that the Russians were the ones who hacked into these emails. This is not in dispute.”

What is not in dispute, however, is that if Hannity were to also leave Fox - the last of the original anchor line-up that boosted Fox News to the top of the ratings charts - the Nielsen chart of Rupert Murdoch's organization, already in tailspin, will move from the upper left to the bottom right, to quote Gartman, as traditional viewers continue to bail for alternative outlets.